Alternatively titled A Curator Rambles On, this presentation aims to piece together musings and reflections on curatorial practice and the act of putting culture(s) on exhibition through the lens of a curator’s experience at two public institutions in Singapore. The first institution is the Malay Heritage Centre that officially opened in 2005. A site-specific, community-focused institution located in Kampung Gelam, Singapore’s historic Muslim quarter and port town, the Centre opened its doors anew in 2012 after a period of redevelopment which involved Noora as curator.

The second is the Asian Civilisations Museum which opened in 1997 to foster appreciation of the ancestral cultures of Singaporeans. By 2015, when Noora joined the museum to develop a new permanent gallery on Islamic art, a revamp was already underway with a re-articulated emphasis on cross-cultural connections within Asia, and interactions between Asia and the world. In navigating the terrains of different museological models and modalities as configured by the two institutions, Noora considers how curatorial tactics are transmogrified through a constellation of collections, public perception, community engagement and institutional objectives.

About the Speaker

Noorashikin binte Zulkifli joined the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) in 2015 as curator of Islamic art where she has curated the exhibition, ‘Ilm: Science and Imagination in the Islamic World(2016). From 2010 to 2015, she was a curator at the Malay Heritage Centre. She worked on several exhibitions including Yang Menulis | They Who Write (2012) and Budi Daya (2015). Her meandering journey, from the contemporary to the historical, includes curatorial and programming positions at NUS Museum and Singapore Art Museum. She holds a Masters in Interactive Media and Critical Theory from Goldsmiths College, UK. Noora’s current research interests revolve around Islamic Southeast Asia, manuscripts and the arts of the book.